Infection
by Alyce of the Togas
Summary: An Infection swept through Britain only leave a few survivors, and attacking anything Light. What happens when only the Dark are left. Possible Slash.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making any money from this in any way.

Slash of the male/male and female/female kind will eventually be appearing in this story. If you don't like slash then please leave. Don't read what you don't like.

* * *

It first started with Dumbledore. Nobody knew what was happening. Nobody could.

From Dumbledore it spread to the Weasley's first infection Ron, then through the rest of his family, leaving only George and Bill unaffected. From there it slowly infected the rest of the Order of Phoenix. Apart from George and Bill, the only people left unaffected within the Order, were myself, Snape and Remus.

The only reasoning that we could come up with, upon reflection was that we were immune due to having built up our immunity against the Infection, so our bodies and magic rejected it. While not being pleasant, it was by no means life threatening.

The Infection, as we've recently been told, was so Dark, it only affected the Light.

Nobody knows how the Infection started, or who it traces back to – and no one is game enough to try and touch such a Dark bacteria to find out.

Not even the Dark Lord. Who was our first candidate for letting such an Infection upon the British Wizarding population, but as it turns out – even he wouldn't consider something so horrific – not even on Muggle-born and Half-bloods.

It was no surprise to me when I found that it could only infect the Light, or those who hadn't extensively used the Darker Arts, since the Lightest people I knew were the ones first stricken down.

Those groups who weren't infected didn't surprise me much either. The majority of Slytherins and a small percentage of Ravenclaws, many Aurors, a few Ministry workers who had worked with or been in close contact with Dark objects and obviously the Death Eaters and their associates. Surprisingly there were a few medi-wizards and witches who were also unsusceptible to the Infection and these people were possibly the most useful in the after mass of the first Infection.

When we realised that only Darker people weren't being affected, we realised the only choice was to band together – _all_ of the people who were surviving the Infection and escape Britain. This included all people and animals, magical and non-magical alike.

We left our home country no less than four weeks after the Infection first became known for what it was.


	2. The Beginning

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making any money from this in any way.

Slash of the male/male and female/female kind will eventually be appearing in this story. If you don't like slash then please leave. Don't read what you don't like.

* * *

"I can't believe that they're keeping us in quarantine for a month." George stretched out his long legs resting them on the sterile countertop. "I'm going to go bloody crazy in here."

Harry turned from his book towards George, "You know that it takes a month for the Infection to properly surface. They're just making sure that none of us are contaminated." The young man placed the book face down and open on his lap, "It's actually a good idea. One I heard that they gleamed from the Muggle customs officers."

The red head just sighed and rolled his eyes. In the two days that the small group of magical and non-magical survivors had fled from England to escape the disease with the help of the American governments they had been kept in a large dorm-like containment area. There were two main rooms. One which had camp-beds lining down both sides of the left and right walls, with a smaller room off that served as a bathroom and shower area. The other main room was larger, with tables placed around the centre, a cooking/kitchen area in one corner, and a small television in the other.

Everything was very sterile and metallic. Harry found it amusing that Severus disliked the artificial brightness of the apartment. George found it annoying how much Severus kept on bringing up the topic.

Harry glanced over to the other side of the room. Surrounding the television was a circle of chairs, most of them occupied with Death Eaters… Or as he should say, Former Death Eaters. Since the abandonment of England, the sole survivors had banded together and given themselves the catchy titles of… The Survivors. You can guess which Dark Lord came up with the name.

"Harry… HARRY." George waved his hand in front of Harry's face, "Dude you just zoned out on me." Harry smiled sheepishly, "Sorry I was thinking."

George snorted, "Well there isn't much else to do this place is there?" The younger boy shook his head, "No I suppose not…"

* * *

_The castle shook. It was only a matter of time until it was going to collapse. Hogwarts had been built with Light magic – and the Infection attacked anything Light. And as we found out this included buildings. The only reason why the dungeons hadn't collapse yet was due to it being the domain of Slytherin himself and therefore had more Dark built into it than the rest of Hogwarts. Harry looked around at the remaining people in Hogwarts who weren't Infected. There weren't many. The majority of them were Slytherins, with a couple of Ravenclaws threw in. _

_At first they had been surprised that Harry had actually not been Infected. They had all thought of him as the Saviour of the Light, and all The Paragon of Virtue. It was only when the survivors had started to gather themselves and barricaded the dungeons that it became known how Dark the boy actually was. _

_The Infected were attacking again. And this time the barricades weren't going to hold. Severus had started to lead the evacuation and the Americans were going to be there to pick up the survivors of Hogwarts. Over the last week they had been able to contact them, and an evacuation team were waiting for the last remaining survivors within England. _

_Another rumble. Rocks started to crumble, chunks falling off._

_Harry held his breath. He could hear the Infected. It hurt to see what his friends and schoolmates had become. The Infection had wiped all memories clean, and just made them drooling masses of flesh. The only way to kill one of them was to inflict severe damage onto the skull in hope of damaging the brain. Other than that, there was no way to stop them. It didn't matter if you took off their limbs, they would pull themselves along the ground with their teeth, blood oozing out where their limbs used to be. _

_It was horrific seeing them like that._

_But it was worse having to actually defend oneself. _

_In the beginning everybody was squeamish to use magic and brute force against the Infected, but after a few days everybody got over the fact that the Infected looked like the people they used to know. Because in truth – they weren't those people anymore. The Infection had turned them into walking corpses – or as the muggle-borns within our group call them – Zombies._

* * *

Harry shook his head. He couldn't believe it had only been two days since the Americans had evacuated the Hogwarts Survivors. Time passed slowly while in quarantine. He supposed it was his unfortunate luck that he was stuck in quarantine with Voldemort… Or as he preferred to be called now, Tom.

Though, unlike usual, Tom wasn't actually trying to kill Harry and take over the Wizarding World. In fact he was attempting to make friends with Harry.

Between Remus and Harry they had discussed how with something as Dark as the Infection, it had changed Voldemort into his younger version of himself, Tom. As everybody within our group soon found out, before the Infection, Voldemort was actually working for what he thought was Light – so when Voldemort got Infected, instead of killing him – it turned him back into his Darker self, which would be Tom.

Harry glanced over to where Tome sat. It was strange that he looked to be Harry's age – but was in truth, actually years and years older.

Most of the people in the room looked younger actually. Or at least those who were actually over forty – a very strange consequence of their bodies having fought the Infection. But despite this, older and younger people were still washed out and pale. The only one who looked better than before the Infection was Remus. He just radiates health. It was strange how the Infection affected him in that way. The group has hypothesised that instead of harming Dark beings – like werewolves and vampires – it helped them by cleansing their magic and bodies.

Naturally the mediwizards and witches were spending the majority of their time debating on whether Light magic is healthy or not for Dark beings. But since Remus is the only werewolf and there are no vampires in our company there is no way to be sure until we're all out of isolation.


	3. Quarantine

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making any money from this in any way.

Slash of the male/male and female/female kind will eventually be appearing in this story. If you don't like slash then please leave. Don't read what you don't like.

Also - I know where there fic is going - but I'm not sure about whether to pair anybody up in it or not. Feedback on this would be really great, especially on who you would like to see together, I'm open for all suggesstions.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Pictures flashed across the screen illuminating the dark shadows within the large room. Harry sat staring at the television screen – watching footage of Britain at its worse, captured on camera by the Americans when they saved the Survivors.

It was horrific.

But the pictures hardly conveyed the actual horror being there and seeing the Infection run its course in person.

When the footage stopped playing, for about the fifth time today, Harry sighed. The Survivors had been in quarantine for only seven days. One week and it had already felt like month.

People were also getting antsy. The remaining Hogwarts students especially.

A rustle behind broke Harry out of his contemplations and he turned quickly to see Tom standing a few metres away holding a book in his hands.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," Tom ran a hand through his hair, "I couldn't sleep, so I was going to read a bit. I didn't think anybody else would be awake."

Harry just shrugged and shifted in his seat, "I couldn't sleep either."

There was an awkward silence between the two men, before Tom walked forward and fell gracefully into the seat beside Harry. The flickering light from the television cast a bluish glow upon them, illuminating their facial features and glossy dark hair.

"You looked like you were deep in thought Harry." It was a statement, not a question, yet Harry nodded, "I was."

Tom raised an eyebrow, "Care to share what you were thinking?"

Harry shrugged again and flipped his legs over the side of the cushy chair. "That it's good we finally realised we're wizards and transfigured the furniture so it's actually comfortable."

Tom grinned, "I must admit, it was one of my better and more popular ideas." Earlier that day, Tom had finally gotten sick of sitting on cold metal stools, and so proceeded to transfigure all of the furniture. While it wasn't particularly stylish or matching – at least it was finally comfortable to sit down.

"But that wasn't what you were really thinking about Harry, was it?"

Harry heaved a huge sigh, "No, it wasn't." He started to twist his long hair round a finger and looked at Tom, "I was thinking of the tension that has been building up in here over the last few days."

Tom nodded, "So you noticed it as well." This time it was Tom's turn to sigh, "There seems to be a right forming amongst the Hogwarts students. Those who don't trust me but trust you enough when you say I won't harm them and that I'm not really Voldemort. And then those who don't trust you because you trust me." He gave a little grin, "I think most of them were rattled that you even survived the Infection, let alone thrived from it."

A small smiled curved Harry's lips upwards and a wicked little gleam appeared in his eyes, "It was most amusing when Draco announced that the remedial potion lesions I had been having for the past three years were actually Dark Art lesson." A small laugh, "And then the look on their faces when they actually saw me use dark magic… It was priceless."

Tom laughed, but soon turned serious again, "What are we going to do about the tension though. We're still in quarantine for the next three weeks, and while the adults are alright with everything, trouble amongst the children would cause discord."

Harry looked back at the television, "I don't know. We'll have to figure something out soon. Maybe ask Severus for ideas. The children seen to look up to him since he was one of their professors at Hogwarts." Tom nodded his agreement.

The television continued to flicker showing commercials about various exercise machines and Tom studied Harry in the light radiating from it. After a few minutes of silence, Tom shifted in his seat, swinging his legs over one side, reflecting the same position as Harry.

"You realise that they all look up to us," he said casually to Harry, "Like we're the leaders of the Survivors or something."

A bitter look appeared on Harry's face and he twisted his hair harder narrowing his eyes, "Oh – I realise that. Even your former Death Eaters come up to me wanting to have a chat about this and that." He paused, "Not to mention apologising for the various times each one tried to kill or capture me."

Tom's face contorted into a grimace, "Don't I know. The bunch of them, except for Severus, can prattle like little old ladies. And at least you aren't getting hit on by them like I am now."

The two men laughed and descended into a comfortable silence for the rest of the night, Tom reading his book, and Harry flicking through television channels.

* * *

_It had been two days since they got work out to the other Ministries of Magic about what was happening in Britain. They were starting to loose hope that help or rescue would or could ever come._

_Those not afflicted by the Infection within Hogwarts had been holed up in the dungeons for the past ten days – and Severus was getting worried. Each day they were pushed a little bit deeper into the bowels of the castle, the Infected slowly gaining more ground._

_It also didn't help that the majority of survivors left were fifth grade or lower. Only a handful of seventh and sixth graders from Slytherin and Ravenclaw remained, with only four adults. And of course Potter and Draco._

_Severus mused – without those two, it was likely wouldn't have even lasted this long. Thank god, he had caved in on training them both in the Dark Arts._

_Looking round, Severus saw Draco talking a group of younger students through a useful curse that worked on the Infected – one of the few that did. The students had stopped going to Potter and asking for help after a few days. While Potter seemed happy to teach them, his teaching style was similar to Severus' own – demanding and vicious._

_So now they went to Draco, who surprisingly, turned out to be a very competent teacher._

_Searching for Potter, he found the messy black hair bent close in with two red heads – obviously discussing tactics with the last two remaining Weasley's, Bill and George, for their upcoming shift at the barricades._

_It had been found that the Infected did not need sleep or rest. So attacks were continuous against the ramshackle barricades. So the remaining adults and older students were paired in two or threes and a shift rotation roster had been created, with at least two people guarding the barricades at a time._

_So far it had worked._

_But it was only a matter of time before the Infected would break through._

_Severus could only hope that help and rescue arrived before then._

* * *

The Americans wanted a report written up about the Infection. Remus and Bill had taken charge of it – but unfortunately neither of them knew how to use the laptop given to them for the task. So, somehow they had coerced George into typing up their notes, which they had complied by interviewing the Survivors for information. He knew that learning how to use muggle technology would backfire on him one day. 

"Ok. So George, first we need the section about the possible origins of the Infection. Ideas about its biology, genetics and magical makeup are next, then the part about transmission, the phases of Infection, and its final outcome. After that is the final section discussing its affects upon different people and creatures, especially the differences between Light and Dark wizards and witches. Luckily we don't have to worry about the Infections affect upon pure muggles since we don't have any in quarantine with us to talk to…"

George zoned Remus' lecturing out, concentrating on typing from the notes without taking any of the information in. Most of it was beyond his comprehension, not understanding much about biology or genetics.

Finally when Remus stopped and before Bill could start listing the things Remus may have forgotten, he asked, "Who do the Americans need this information anyway? What use is any of this stuff in fighting the Infection?"

Remus and Bill both gave him condescending looks, but before either could answer his question, an aristocratic drawl answered for them, "If we can get an idea of anything about the origins and transmission, but especially its biological and magical makeup, then there is a better chance of creating a cure for it, or finding better ways to fight and counteract against it."

George looked up from the laptop, to the older Malfoy standing in front of him and gawked. Who would have though Malfoy would know about stuff like this?

Remus instantly latched onto the slightly older man and pulled him into a seat between himself and Bill asking his opinion on some topic of debate between the two of them.

Oh great, George thought as he started typing from the notes again, another intellect enthusiast.


End file.
